Truly dumb question - do you actually *need* a belly button or can you have it surgically removed via plastic surgery? Since I have dumped close to 100 pounds, and will eventually end up needing the excess skin dealt with, can one simply have the navel removed?

No idea why the idea popped into my head, so I wasn't sure if this needs to go into GQ or mundane/pointless ....

, the results of the procedure leave you with a smooth, soft contour around your navel with virtually no trace of the surgery. The technique attaches the lower part of your belly button deep into the abdominal wall. Once the swelling subsides and your recovery progresses, you’re left with a normal-looking, gently rounded navel.

Know you were joking...but...clones (to date!) have 'em (if the species does.) Dolly the sheep had one. (A cloned frog wouldn't.) Much depends on the (futuristic) incubating tech.

That depends on how you grow the clone.
If the clone is a placental animal, and you grow it in a placental situation, yes it will have one, because it's pretty much required to live to birth.

But, if you can come up with a way to assemble and grow the clone and eliminate its need for some kind of tether (I've no idea how to pull that off mind you)
I am pretty sure there would be no naval, since no umbilical cord.

Also, i am not exactly sure on frogs, but chickens do have what i guess you could refer to as a belly button, and frogs are born in a similar fashion.
When the chick hatches there is a hole in the belly that the yoke sack is attacked to.
When it hacked, it sucks the yoke sac inside and the hole closes.
It does not make a big noticeable crater like humans have, but you can still see the very small scar where the yolk sac cord used to come out, which does equate to the same type of scar in humans for the same purpose.
Its just very small and not very pronounced

Truly dumb question - do you actually *need* a belly button or can you have it surgically removed via plastic surgery? Since I have dumped close to 100 pounds, and will eventually end up needing the excess skin dealt with, can one simply have the navel removed?

This is EXACTLY what happened to someone that I'm very close with. The strip of excess skin that the plastic surgeon chose to remove included the navel.

More specifically, imagine a dot near the right hip and another near the left hip. Draw an arc from one to the other that reaches above the navel, and another arc lower, near the pubic area. Cut out the skin in the middle, and pull the upper area downwards and connect. The result is a very large scar-free area, and whatever scarring there might be is below the pantyline/underwear area.

The plastic surgeon offered to create a fake navel at the appropriate place. It looks fine, but has none of the nerves or sensations usually associated with a navel.

In the documentary Blade Runner, the replicant Zhora has a navel. Replicants are "assembled" from parts and are fully grown at the get-go. (She was less than 3 1/2 years "old" at the time.)

In her case, there was no need to add it to prevent her from being aware she was a replicant as she knew that already. Unlike others.

The replicant Pris is your basic pleasure model so a navel would be expected by her clients for appearance sakes. But Zhora is an assasin. She might have had the navel added before getting the job at Taffey's club. Given her situation that seems improbable.

The issue with clones, as noted, is that the method of construction decides as to whether a navel is needed or not.

BTW, the Wikipedia article on navel disorders is quite chilling for such a short entry. Some of those conditions require removal of the navel to ensure a permanent fix.

I've heard that belly-button-removal is a popular plastic surgery (well, as popular as any plastic surgery) in Japan.

Sounds like urban legend, unless you've got a cite. The navel has some cultural significance in Japan. I would guess it's about as common as bagel-head surgery (google it) and other forms of extreme body modification. IOW, it's not at all popular; it's a fringe activity

...
BTW, the Wikipedia article on navel disorders is quite chilling for such a short entry. Some of those conditions require removal of the navel to ensure a permanent fix.

The more I learn about modern medicine the more I conclude it takes about a million things working right to keep us alive for the next 10 seconds. Much less 80 years.

The laundry list of ways things can go haywire is appallingly long. Gives one the sensation of hanging by the merest of threads while buffeted by a hurricane. And yet the evidence all around us is it mostly works most of the time. Perhaps, as in so many things, we shouldn't examine the magic too closely.

When my ex-wife had reconstructive surgery after a mastectomy, they removed skin from her lower abdomen for the reconstruction. She woke up from surgery with a newly constructed navel. I don't remember the surgeon even mentioning the navel reconstruction pre-op, and we were understandably too distracted with other issues to think about it at the time. But afterwards, I thought wouldn't it be cool to have no navel at all? When people asked about your lack of navel you could respond "Oh, I'm not a mammal. I was hatched from a leathery egg."

I hate to be that guy, but if Karolina Kurkova doesn't have a belly button, then what's that indentation in her abdomen right where one would expect a belly button to be?

There's less tissue naturally in that spot between the umbilicus and the abdominal wall. (The latter itself can be quite thin in that area, leading to hernias in some people.) So there's not the same layers of fat, etc., that the rest of the belly has under the skin. Take out the navel and you get a depression.

Well, in some people. In others subdermal tissue can fill in and push out giving outies.

Remember, there used to be big blood vessels passing thru the skin and abdominal wall here to connect to the major vessels in the body.

When my ex-wife had reconstructive surgery after a mastectomy, they removed skin from her lower abdomen for the reconstruction. She woke up from surgery with a newly constructed navel. I don't remember the surgeon even mentioning the navel reconstruction pre-op, and we were understandably too distracted with other issues to think about it at the time. But afterwards, I thought wouldn't it be cool to have no navel at all? When people asked about your lack of navel you could respond "Oh, I'm not a mammal. I was hatched from a leathery egg."

On Barsoom, the human-like Red Men of Mars are hatched from eggs (as are the six-limbed Green Men). They seem to have belly buttons.

A Rykor (described to be a headless, but otherwise "perfect specimen of Red Martian". Definitely a belly button. Quote from Wikipedia:

Quote:

The Chessmen of Mars introduces the Kaldanes of Bantoom. Their form is almost all head but for six spiderlike legs and a pair of chelae. Their racial goal is to evolve towards pure intellect and away from bodily existence. In order to function in the physical realm, they have bred the Rykors, a complementary species composed of a body similar to that of a perfect specimen of Red Martian but lacking a head. When the Kaldane places itself upon the neck of the Rykor, a bundle of tentacles connects with the Rykor's spinal cord, allowing the brain of the Kaldane to interface with the body of the Rykor. Should the Rykor become damaged or die, the Kaldane merely climbs upon another as an earthling might change a horse.

I don't know if the White, Black, or Yellow men of Mars are hatched or born, and I didn't see any good pictures, anyway. All I can tell you is to be prepared for a serious fight if you bother any of these guys. They didn't make Mars the god of war for nuthin'.

ST's vBulletin 3 Responsive Styles

Our newly refreshed styles in 2017, brings the old vb3 to the new level, responsive and modern feel. It comes with 3 colors with or without sidebar, fixed sized or fluid. Default vbulletin 3 style made responsive also available in the pack.
Purchase Our Style Pack Now